What's behind Colorado's hard left turn?

Democrats have taken a decided advantage in Colorado's political scene after wresting 40 years of control from Republicans. How the state got to this point and how long that grasp will hold remain up for debate.

Add Democrats’ most prosperous decade of election performances in a half-century, and it is undeniable that the longtime swing state has become a bluer shade of purple, longtime observers of Colorado politics agree.

“The Democratic ideology and the liberal ideals have the advantage in Colorado right now,” said pollster Floyd Ciruli, who has closely watched Colorado politics for more than three decades.

He and other political experts said the forces driving the leftward drift are migration of progressive transplants to the state, its burgeoning Hispanic population and the emergence of a far-right flank within the Republican Party that clings to rigid ideology on social issues that alienates moderate voters.

It came from California

Between 1995 and 2000, a net total of more than 55,000 people moved to Colorado from California, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In the years since, West Coast residents — and their politics — have continued to migrate here.

Most of these transplants landed along Colorado’s Front Range and share the traits of being young, liberal, and employed in the technology and research fields, according to Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver.

“People are fleeing states like California, big cities like Detroit and Chicago, and coming to Colorado, for the promise of opportunity and outdoor recreation, and importing their politics,” said Ryan Call, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

He doubts the demographic advantage that the liberal ideology enjoys today is sustainable. Call predicts newcomers to the state will eventually grow disenchanted with the policies of the Democrats they elect.

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But Rick Palacio, chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party, said it’s the GOP that must rethink its values in order to win back the electorate’s allegiance from his party and its ideals.

“The GOP is filled with angry, old, white guys, and that tends to be a viewpoint held widely around the state,” Palacio said.

Bridges built and burned

The rise of liberalism in Colorado can be traced to the buildup to the 2004 election, when the infrastructure to Democrats’ long-range political prosperity began to take shape. Boatloads of money congealed from Fort Collins billionaire Pat Stryker and other Democratic activists with deep pockets, including gay-rights champion Tim Gill; current U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who represents Larimer County in Congress; and Rutt Bridges.

“When the history is written, their role in Colorado will be of major significance, in fact one of the top factors — the massive amount of money that was extremely well spent,” Ciruli said.

Targeted deployment of those resources on voter outreach in the 2004 election wrestled away the majority Republicans had held on state government for 40 years. Since then, Democrats have shared power in the Legislature for just two years and have won both gubernatorial elections.

“This has a lot to do with the Republican Party themselves and what they have failed to do over the last generation, which is to really change with the changing face of the electorate and changing viewpoints,” Palacio said.

An identity crisis

Retired Colorado College political science professor Robert Loevy, a registered Republican, shares Palacio’s perspective that factions within the GOP have repelled some up-for-grabs voters by taking hard-line stances on certain social issues, namely gay rights, abortion and immigration.

“Fifty years ago, the backbone of the Republican Party was upper-class people with good educations that mostly lived in the suburbs — old-timers called them ‘Eisenhower Republicans,’ ” Loevy said. “They sustained the party for years. Under the (President George W.) Bush administration, emphasis on those key social issues began driving upscale and well-educated people out of the Republican Party. This was particularly true of their children. That’s the main reason, in my view, for the decline of the Republican Party in Colorado.”

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The rise of the tea party movement within the GOP has marginalized traditional Republicans, whose influence on nominating candidates has been diluted by socially conservative activists in the party. And arch-conservative candidates tend not to fare well in general elections on a statewide scale.

“It’s much harder (now) for a moderate Republican to get nominated for anything,” Masket said. “That has had an effect in some ways of alienating independents.”

Call acknowledges that priorities within his party differ, when in the past they were for the most part homogenous.

“The challenge for the Republican Party in Colorado right now is recognizing that our coalition is changing,” he said.

Partitions must come down between elements in the party focused on libertarian ideals, religious social standards and free enterprise in order to keep the GOP competitive, and Call sees an opportunity to unite these factions around the long-held Republican principles of limited government and rugged individualism.

“We have a great opportunity to redefine what it means to be a Republican in Colorado,” he said.

In turn, Call thinks the new definition will appeal to a fresh generation of Republicans — recent college graduates, immigrants and others aiming to climb the ladder toward the American dream of economic success.

“We are the party of the up-and-comer,” Call said.

The road ahead

The question now is how long the left can keep its hold on a state that’s party registration is virtually split three ways between Democrats, the GOP and unaffiliated voters.

Call sees the 2014 election cycle as a promising opportunity for Republicans to make inroads based on the record Democrats in control of the Legislature and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper established this year.

It included passing measures that require background checks on gun transactions between individuals, a restriction on high-capacity ammunition magazines and increased reliance on renewable energy by rural electric providers that translates to a rate hike for customers.

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Proposals that included compromises when they previously failed in a divided Legislature went for the full grab when they passed easily under Democrat control this year. Previously proposed concessions on the price of college tuition for children who entered the country without authorization and to exempt religious organizations from a requirement to consider same-sex couples seeking to adopt children were taken off the table in versions of those laws passed this year.

Which party is more repulsive?

Call said citizens’ disenchantment with Democrats is evident in recall efforts targeting two of them in the Senate, the lawsuit brought by sheriffs from both parties that aims to undo new gun-control laws and a threat by some northern counties to split from Colorado and form a 51st state.

“This is a result of the frustration that people in our state are feeling that Democrats have overreached,” Call said. “There will be a political price to pay.”

“That is one of the risks of governing when you have unified party control,” Masket said. “You do things that your supporters have wanted you to do for years, and that’s not necessarily what the median voter in Colorado wanted.”

Palacio said he’s not worried that voters will perceive the Legislature’s actions as going too far. Rather, he said the Democrats in power had a mandate from their constituents to proceed as they did.

Reading the tea leaves

Loevy said history doesn’t bode well for the fortunes of the Democrats in 2014. In the sixth year of a two-term president’s rule — where Democratic President Barack Obama will find himself next year — the sitting president’s party has generally fared poorly.

“That’s a time for mistakes to build up,” he said. “People get tired of the president and his party and their programs.”

Loevy pointed to 2006, the same juncture in Bush’s presidency, when Democrats won the governor’s race in Colorado to complete their takeover of the state Capitol.

Plus, a midterm election is susceptible to voter apathy, and higher turnouts have tended to benefit Democratic candidates in Colorado. During its decadelong remodeling project on long-range infrastructure, the Democratic Party has prevailed in drawing legislative boundaries that will guide elections for the next nine years, developed a sound campaigning ground game and this year passed legislation likely to put ballots in more voters’ hands.

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“These perceived advantages of the Democratic Party absolutely can be overcome,” Call said. “I think Republicans can certainly compete, despite the attempt by the Democrats to tilt the field in their favor.”

Masket isn’t prepared to crown the Democrats long-term rulers of the state, but he noted that the ultraconservative Republicans who have announced their candidacy for next year’s election so far — such as former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo and Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler — match the profile of candidates who in recent years appeal to GOP primary voters but stumble in general elections.

Call hinted that others are still likely to join the race for the Republican nomination.

Ciruli said he thinks Hickenlooper is more vulnerable as a result of this year’s polarizing legislative session, but he cautiously predicts at this point that Democrats collectively can weather the backlash in 2014.

“These things are impermanent,” he said. “But at least at the moment, the factors appear to be favoring the Democrats.”

He said this November’s off-year ballot question seeking a $1 billion tax hike to fund schools will be an early bellwether to the 2014 election. How Republicans in Congress approach the pending bipartisan immigration overhaul that’s proposed — and how Hispanic Coloradans react — also could influence outcomes next year.

Loevy predicts a long period of prosperity for Democrats in Colorado.

“The main reason is going to be the far-right-wing character of the Republican Party,” he said.

Palacio has no illusions that his party has locked down prosperity in perpetuity. He emphasized that politics is cyclical and the GOP may again have its day in the sun in Colorado.

“But I’m not worried about that anytime soon,” he said. “The problem with the Republican Party — and what may end up being their demise — is that they refuse to move with the people.”

Call responded that he’s confident next year’s state and federal elections will disprove presumptions that the GOP in Colorado is fading toward irrelevance.

“I don’t think the Republicans’ obituary should be written anytime soon,” he said.